When Dragons Rage

30

Kerrigan Reese felt better, though still uneasy. Before he left the chamber, Rym Ramoch had instructed Bok to bathe and clothe Kerrigan after the young mage ate. The meal had proved filling though not terribly appetizing. Kerrigan suspected the meat in the gravy was really rat, but at that point he was so hungry he didn’t care.

After that came a bath. The urZrethi wrestled a half-tun cask into the small room and filled it with water. From a shelf he took a small piece of volcanic rock, whispered over it, then tossed it into the water. Bubbles rose quickly and steam drifted, then the urZrethi pulled the rock out, bounced it from hand to hand, and finally set it steaming on the shelf.

Kerrigan slipped into the warm water and prepared to relax, but Bok took the orders to bathe him seriously. The urZrethi scrubbed him up one side and down the other, leaving his skin red and tingling. Kerrigan had never felt so much a child as he did in that bath. With one hand Bok was able to shift him this way and that, and Kerrigan had no doubt the urZrethi could have hauled him bodily from the bath without difficulty.

Once he’d been bathed, Bok brought him warm clothes of a very utilitarian nature. Though Kerrigan had grown up wearing robes, he had since gotten used to trousers and tunics. Moreover, he associated them with adventure. And because his wearing of them would be frowned upon by his superiors on Vilwan, that sort of minor rebellion thrilled him.

Once Bok had cleared away the wash basin, he brought bedding and bid Kerrigan lie down. As the mage did, the urZrethi stretched an arm up until it was thinner than a spear haft, and pinched the chandelier candles dark.

Kerrigan lay back and considered what Rym had told him. The simple fact that Kerrigan could perform the magicks that he did meant that men could learn them. While Kerrigan loved to think of himself as special, it did seem curious that someone like the Grand Magister could not cast even the most simple of healing spells. And yet, the Grand Magister did know that it was possible for a man to cast those spells.

Either Yrulph Kirun had been a genius and figured out a lot of things about magick for himself, or he had been taught a great deal and expanded upon it. Or both. Perhaps he so outstripped his superiors that they really had no idea what he was capable of doing.

Just like me.

It made sense, in the aftermath of it all, for leaders on Vilwan to institute changes in instruction that hobbled their charges. If the greatest threat the world had ever known had come from Vilwan, without concessions and safeguards Vilwan would have been destroyed. Nations would refuse to send their talented sorcerers to Vilwan to be trained, shutting down the island and its culture.

Kerrigan’s mind reeled as things began to fit into place. Nations had no real desire to have strong magick academies because the first one of them to produce a Kirun could begin a war of conquest against its neighbors. What the world leaders needed was stable magick in the human nations—magick that would help do many things and make life a bit easier, but nothing that would allow the atrocities that Kirun had committed when he fashioned and used the DragonCrown.

The leadership on Vilwan, then, would have approached the world leaders with a plan to curb their own magickal power in return for continued support. They purposely stunted the people they trained, while keeping alive the fact that men could handle more powerful spells. He wasn’t sure when someone was told the truth about magick, but it was likely after one had attained the rank of Magister—and even then probably only after they had proved their loyalty to Vilwan.

But when Chytrine made her first drive south a quarter century earlier, the Vilwanese leaders realized they’d made a mistake. They had no one who could counter her abilities, for she had been Kirun’s apprentice. Given a generation’s respite, they endeavored to train someone who could rival her in power. While they didn’t want to produce someone who could threaten the world the way Kirun had, only Vilwan could produce someone who could defeat her.

At least that would have been their thinking.

So Vilwan created Kerrigan.

And now they fear what they created.

The implications of that realization sent a shiver through him. Would they hunt him down? They had sent one group after him already. What would they bring once they knew how powerful he truly was?

He shook his head in the darkness and consciously shunted those ideas away. Instead he focused on another thing Rym Ramoch had mentioned: the taint on his magick. Kerrigan had long known that different spells had different sensations. A human spell felt rather crude and angular when compared to the living flow of an elven spell. And urZrethi magick had an evanescent quality. Their magick shifted like smoke and shadows, difficult to grasp, but easy to manipulate and use to foster changes.

Thinking about that led him to two questions. The first actually begged an answer. Because he could identify a spell by its casting, he wondered if there were other characteristics that would allow him to learn more about the spell and its caster. Orla had told him that the wand Wheele had carried had somehow allowed the sorcerer to identify her, and to tailor a spell to kill her. Wheele had even taunted her by saying his master, the sullanciri Neskartu, had given him the wand for use against “Vilwan spawn.” Wheele’s comment suggested that there was an identifiable aspect to the magick cast by someone trained on Vilwan. Moreover, Orla had once implied that elements in a spell could help someone identify the individual spellcaster.

Kerrigan accepted the idea that something in how he cast a spell might allow someone to identify him. It was similar to oration: the same speech given to a hundred different people will sound largely the same, but each speaker would bring something new to it that would allow people to differentiate one speaker from another. Identifying the individual speaker would be more difficult, but with sufficient study and good observation, it could be done.

His acceptance of those ideas brought him to the idea of taint. He fully accepted that magickal items of great power were identifiable. The notion that some of their essence might rub off on those who came in contact with them did not surprise him. Not only had he carried a portion of the DragonCrown, but he had worked magick on it and another fragment, and had actually touched yet a third portion of it. For him to be tainted by that contact did not surprise him, and Rym Ramoch had accepted his explanation for the taint without question.

The more curious idea, however, was that Rym had talked about the taint of Kirun’s spell. Kerrigan knew that when he worked magick he drew energy into himself and used it to make spells work, but he had never dwelt long on where that energy came from. He did know some students had trouble accessing it, but that had never been his problem. In fact, many of his tutors had envied the facility with which he was able to draw power to him and infuse it into his spells.

What if, however… and here he sought an analogy that might suffice. If drawing power to him were really akin to mining coal, would it be possible that his hands would remain dirty? Would his hands be stained? Would his nails be black? Moreover, if the very act of casting a particular spell left some trace of it on him, would that mean he would bear that taint? Again, Rym’s recognition of Kirun’s magick on him would suggest this was true.

And if that is true… Kerrigan hugged his arms to his chest. If a spell or item could leave a trace on an individual, then couldn’t that trace be detected? Such a spell, if attuned to the DragonCrown, for example, might be able to let him fix Chytrine’s location, so they could strike at her.

He groaned aloud. “If I weren’t such an idiot!” When he had magicked the yellow fragment of the DragonCrown, he’d put a spell into it that would slowly warp Chytrine’s views of the world. He wanted it to make her paranoid, so she would think those around her were plotting. At the time he thought it was subtle and a fitting revenge for the death of his mentor.

How much simpler it would have been if he’d just stuck a spell into it that would kill her. Or, barring anything that direct, a more subtle spell that would allow him to locate the fragment of the DragonCrown.

He scrubbed his hands over his face. There are times when I am too smart for my own good. I am smart, but inexperienced. I don’t know enough to be able to do all that I could.

Kerrigan smiled and thought about Orla. The grey-haired woman had once told him as much. When she said to listen to Crow and Resolute, and to avoid Vilwan, it was because she knew that what Vilwan wanted him to be wasn’t going to be what the world needed him to be. He was capable of being more than a dragonel, but like a dragonel he needed to be brought to a target and aimed. Crow and Resolute would do that, since they were intent on one thing: stopping Chytrine.

He sat bolt upright on the straw-filled mattress. Off to his left a spark flashed to life, then arced over to a candle on a shelf. The candle caught, then glowed brightly. More sparks exploded from it and flew around the room, igniting more candles and more until all were merrily ablaze.

The initial spark had come from Rym Ramoch’s left index finger, which he had casually flicked toward the candle. The masked thaumaturge drew his finger back into his fist and peered down at Kerrigan. “You have been restless, Adept Reese.”

“I’ve been thinking about things you said.”

“As I have about things you told me.” The robed wizard steepled his fingers. “This ability to duplicate items out of like items intrigues me. We have no time for a demonstration at the moment, but I shall demand one later. And I wonder how well the duplication works. If I asked you to duplicate an enchanted item, would the enchantment come through completely, or would it fail to work?”

Kerrigan shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t believe the fragment of the DragonCrown that I left behind would be useful in the Crown itself. I didn’t seek to understand the magick there, so I cannot believe I made a duplicate that would work.“

“A pity, though probably for the best, all things considered.” Rym canted his head slightly. “Upon what did you think, Adept?”

“Traces and taints in magick, and why Vilwan is the way it is.”

“Quite a lot to think about. Did you come to any conclusions?”

“Things you already know, I think, since you detected the taints on me.” The rotund mage shifted a bit and drew his legs in under him. “If I could learn to identify the sort of taint the DragonCrown left on me, I might be able to fashion a spell that could locate that same taint in others or on others. If an item like that leaves footprints, then we might be able to follow them.”

“Very good. That would be most useful.” Rym nodded solemnly. “We shall start you learning how to do that. Once you can see the taint, however, you have to learn to do something before you can track it.”

“What’s that?”

“Erase it. If the taint allows you to track others, others might track you because of yours.”

Kerrigan frowned. “But the need to erase the taint suggests others can identify it. Wait. I already know you can do that. Are you telling me that others might be hunting me because of it?”

“I do not know if they are or not. The simple fact is this: if you were hunting an animal, you would approach it from downwind, so your spoor would not alert it to your presence. Anyone who has a portion of the DragonCrown could be powerful enough to detect your approach.”

The young mage nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, of course.”

“Good, a first lesson learned.” Rym clapped his gloved hands and Bok appeared at his shoulder. “Bok, a meal for Adept Reese, then warm clothes. We will be going out.”

Kerrigan’s eyes brightened. “Out?”

The hooded mage nodded solemnly. “Yes, to reunite you with your companions. I have determined to my satisfaction that you are not a threat to the world. With my instruction, however, you will become a threat to Chytrine. The sooner your training begins, the better events will be for us all.”